That's pretty much why, although I found the simultaneous poking fun at and glorification of spastic social-grace-lacking hackers mostly just irritating and stupid.

Throw in the just-us-folks snarking at 'intellectuals' in Cryptonomicon for me.

It is interesting because so much of it matters where you come from. My image of "riot grrrls" is colored by growing up in Japan in the 80s - just because Japanese teenage girls IN Japan look as if they are coming out of a sci-fi movie. Their look is amazing. Their style is so creative. And it was all about the future and it was all about a true birth of their take on feminism at the time.

These images have nothing to do with the reality of the term, though, or what it meant in the 90s or ANYTHING. But I can't help it - it's always what I think of.

I meant punk-rock girl/ bike messenger culture / sorta dykey / tomboys.

Yeah, see, where I went to college, the dykey/tomboyish thing was not of a cultural moment, and it didn't tend to lean in the punk-rock direction. And I still can't think of, say, a popular movie, or a TV show, that professed or exploited this archetype in such a way that it would be considered zeitgeist.

Antigovernment paranoia, I remember that as a fun mid-90s phenomenon. The (Creeped But) Capable Woman phenom rests basically on the shoulders of Jodie Foster and Gillian Anderson, AFAIK. Most of the rest of the 90s stuff professed above I buy into. But yeah, still scratching my head on the "riot grrl" thing.

Because Y.T. in Snow Crash enjoyed her own rape.

Hmm... Yeah, I can see that. I'd forgotten about that scene.

I tend to think Lori Petty, Courtney Love, the morphing of skater girlfriend culture into girl skater culture, and (my apologies to Plei) Olympia.

And I still can't think of, say, a popular movie, or a TV show, that professed or exploited this archetype in such a way that it would be considered zeitgeist.

Oh, I was specifically referring to the girl bike messenger protagonists in Snow Crash and Virtual Light.

But yeah, still scratching my head on the "riot grrl" thing.

It was one of the many off-shoots of punk/indie culture. Spread through zines (back when they were prolific and mailed instead of websites). It was a specific philosophy that wed feminism and punk's Do-It-Yourself ethos. When it started to burble up into the mainstream, they took the interesting step of having a media-moratorium. They didn't want to be co-opted into the mainstream. So what did roll forward into the popular media were more general notions of female empowerment such as Buffy or the Spice Girls sloganeering.

Tank Girl would be another reflection of that character type.

As Ple notes, the reality was that it wound up also being a kind of self-righteous, patriarchal-culture-is-evil, vegan, PETA, recovered-memories-of-abuse, girl-victimhood-support-group, Ani Defranco is GOD, thang.

Jim (Eaton-Terry) was actually pretty close to the center of the movement in London.

Highpoint: Bikini Kill's "Rebel Girl" single as produced by Joan Jett. Low points: see above re: Vegan/Peta/Ani.

meant punk-rock girl/ bike messenger culture / sorta dykey / tomboys.

See, that's interesting, because I don't think of riot grrrls as tomboys or dykey at all. I think of them as being strong and feminist, but having a very feminine outer style -- the kinderwhore thing, or (for those of us who aren't Courtney Love) shortish skirts with tights.

I tend to think Lori Petty, Courtney Love, the morphing of skater girlfriend culture into girl skater culture, and (my apologies to Plei) Olympia.

Though Riot Grrls mostly h8 Courtney Love (subject of much Olympia gossip, and from her songs, I'd say it was mutual).

Yeah, but the kinderwhore thang (which started with Kat Bjelland of Babes in Toyland, I think) wasn't really very Riot Grrrll at all. Kathleen Hanna didn't dress like that.

So, you're telling me that the only sources of this "girl-liberation" movement that I've ever heard of are both by men, and one of them involves said liberated girl enjoying her own rape??

That sort of speaks ill for the movement, you think? Anyway if I were in the movement, I wouldn't want to be associated with Snow Crash.

I know a lot of people listened to Ani DiFranco when I was in college, but just as many didn't and hated her. I, of course, had never heard of her. (And didn't like her. Woman needs to write songs that fit into her own singing register.)

I guess I'm a little unclear on what does or does not make zeitgeist. I would have said that something transmitted in paper zine culture, by definition, is not zeitgeist, because zines are not the easiest things in the world to obtain, and tend[ed] to be local-distribution only. I guess maybe I have a larger minimum popularity threshold to qualify for zeitgeistiness?